The Guardian Goes To Dutch...

Well, my hair is as short as Kevin Costner's anyway...

I am packing to head west to Dutch Harbor for the week. Unlike the movie's Senior Chief Ben Randall, I am not a rescue swimmer, but at least in my mind, I am a helluva Coast Guard Marine Inspector.

It brings to mind the classic argument within the Coast Guard: is it better to be the guard-rail at the top of the cliff, or the ambulance at the bottom?

Unfortunately, the ambulance-guy gets to jump out of helicopters, roll surfboats over, get all the cool medals, get on the cover of Time Magazine after the massive Katrina response...

And the Prevention troops get to travel out to distant, out-of-mind ports with a clipboard, the Code of Federal Regulations, and a cellphone. Instead of drysuits (although I do have one), we wield the authority of the Captain of the Port. Instead of defying death in the frigid waves, we tempt back injuries climbing to the top of the pilothouse to check liferaft installations.

The Rescue Swimmers' motto is "So others may live." The Surfboat community says, "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back." The Inspector lives by the concept that "You have to go to lunch, but you don't have to come back."

Try as we might, inspecting vessels (especially fishing boats) just isn't sexy. Steven Spielberg will never tell our tales. Rather, we work ignominiously, behind the scenes, dull, cold, dirty, un-sexy. Pissing people off, getting in the way of commerce, welding boats to the dock, but mostly:

Gaining compliance with minimum standards, taking the "search" out of Search-and-Rescue, so that the rotor-heads will fly back with survivors.

It's good to be a guard-rail.

On a final note: No, the cat is not going to Dutch Harbor. Yes, I forgot to pack retro-reflective tape. Ohhh, I might get hurt...

And, I am pretty sure there will be no cell coverage, BooBoo...